Brits 2025: Ofcom receive complaints over Sabrina Carpenter and Charli xcx
Following the 2025 Brit Awards last weekend, it has been revealed that Ofcom received hundreds of complaints due to Sabrina Carpenter’s performance and Charli XCX’s outfit.
Ofcom regulates what viewers see on TV, hear on the radio, and watch on video-on-demand services. They deal with whether something is age-appropriate or appropriate enough for the time of day it will be shown and whether viewers find certain broadcasts offensive.
After the Brit Awards on March 1st, hundreds of people reportedly found part of the show offensive, which led to the authority being flooded with complaints from disgruntled viewers.
At the start of the ceremony, Sabrina Carpenter opened up the show with a mash up of her songs ‘Espresso’ and ‘Bed Chem’. At first, dancing around with a troupe of British Beefeaters, the stage then became a bedroom for a steamier dance routine for the second song. In one moment, Carpenter was kneeling in front of a male dancer as she suggestively winked, seemingly sending parents at home into a spiral.
Notably, this took place before the watershed at 9pm. In response, a day later, Carpenter made a joke about this writing on social media, “I now know what watershed is!!!!.”
Charli XCX was also hit with complaints. A number of viewrs took issue with her outfit, as the artist wore a see-through black dress with no bra underneath. Even while at the ceremony, the singer clearly heard about the reaction to her dress, commenting in one of her many award acceptance speeches that night, “I heard that ITV were complaining about my nipples. I feel like we’re in the era of ‘free the nipple’, though, right?”
In total, Ofcom confirmed that they recieved over 825 complaints that night in reaction to Charli’s outfit and Carpenter’s performance.
It comes after Carpenter recently addressed complaints regarding her brand of sex-positive music and performance as she said, “My message has always been clear – if you can’t handle a girl who is confident in her own sexuality, then don’t come to my shows.”
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